Today is the day for the latest incarnation of Gener8. Exciting new features. Bugs defeated. What more can you possibly want.

NEW FEATURES 0.62

LFO generator integrated into the Launchpad module.

DMX input & output triggers from the Launchpad.

Novation Launchpad S Support.

Novation Launchpad Mini Support.

New media select mode behaviour in Novation Launchpad. Now changes media of ‘selected’ Clips, rather than ‘active’. Active Clips can now have their media changes quantised by using the Novation Launchpad’s media mode.

FIXED BUGS

Korg NanoKontrol2 issue fixed – (I hope, cannot test yet – please feedback if this re-occurs. The Nano2 is not yet supported, but should not cause problems as did with version 0.60-0.61.)

MIDI clock now produces timecode correctly in Loop mode.

Zero Division Error’ in Editor module corrected. Mostly – there may be more situations which cause this.

Oh yes, you lucky people! I will be appearing at the Mapping Festival in Geneva this May to host a workshop on Modul8 module creation, with the one and only Gael Lupin (writer of the Modul8 Modules Manual).

We’ll be covering practically everything there is to know about making module for Modul8 and maybe some other treats too.

So, if you’re in the area and want to brush up your skills, or even gain some new ones, come join us. Places are limited so get your name down fast!

One of the powerful but hidden delights of Gener8 is a sequencing method which can quickly produce small Clip sequences in a live situation: Follow Actions

So, here’s a short tutorial to help you master it.

Some salient points to remember:

Each Clip can have its own ‘Follow Action‘.

A Clip’s ‘Follow Action‘ will occur a set number of beats after that Clip has been triggered.

There are a number of different types of ‘Follow Actions‘ which can be applied: Increment, Random, Other, etc.

Step 1 – Prepare your Clips

To do any kind of sequence of Clips, we’re going to need some Clips to sequence. So let’s get started:

Spark up Modul8, make sure you have a ‘New Project’ so things don’t get confusing.

Open up the Gener8 Launchpad and Editor modules (these are the core modules and you’ll need to run these together).

Once the Launchpad is ready, create yourself a few Clips on the 1st layer. To do this simply click on the preview panels on the empty Clip holders. NOTE: It’ll be useful for the sake of this tutorial to create your Clips in the same clip-slots as the image below.

Step 2 – Assign Media to your Clips

You can skip this step, but the final result will obviously be more effective with media!

Chuck some of your favourite media in your Media Panel. (select a few files from a Finder window and drag/drop them into the Media Panel)

Activate a Gener8 Clip.

Select a media for that Clip from the Media Panel.

Activate the next Gener8 Clip (make sure the Clip trigger has stopped flashing – a useful tip when you are assigning a lot of media’s is to turn off the quantise to speed the process up)

Select the next media for the second Clip. 🙂

And so on, repeat until all your Clips have media assigned to them.

Tip: You can also change the media assigned to a Clip in the Clip Inspector (top left – Trig pane). There is a value for ‘Media’ number there.

Step 3 – Create a Follow Actions

As I mentioned before, there are quite a few different types of Follow Actions, but first we will have a play with the ‘Increment’ action.

Select the topmost Clip by clicking on the media preview of the Clip in the Launchpad (it doesn’t need to be active, you can do this on the sly during your performance.) Selected Clips have an orange square around them.

Okay, the Clip Inspector will now be open on the top left of the Gener8 Launchpad, and will be displaying the properties of the selected clip. Select the ‘TRIG’ pane to view the Follow Actions settings.

Next, set the Follow Actions menu to ‘Increment’. You will see a further setting appear, we’ll leave this at the default setting of ‘1’ for now. Time for some explanations…

How Does a ‘Follow Action’ Work?

Okay, now we have a Follow Action in place (in the above instance it’s an ‘Increment’ action), the next time this Clip is triggered, it will send out a secondary trigger which will occur a set number of beats after the initial Clip is triggered. You have options for which Clip is triggered next, and how many beats will occur before the ‘follow trigger’ happens.

You can only:

Trigger Clips in the same layer.

Delay triggers by whole beats.

Everything else is pretty much game, but remember – changes to a Clip’s Follow Actions settings will not take effect until that Clip is re-triggered.

Step 4 – Let’s make a Follow Loop.

We have an Increment action on our 1st Clip, let’s see if we can make a simple sequence which works in a loop.

Select Clip 2 and make a further ‘Increment’ action for this Clip, only this time let’s set the ‘INCR.’ value to ‘2’.

Now select Clip 4 and again make another ‘Increment’ action. This time we will set our ‘INCR.’ value to ‘-3’.

Re-trigger Clip 1 and sit back while you sequence plays…

So, how is this working?

Our 1st Clip has an increment value of 1, which means it will trigger the Clip ‘1’ space below it, which is ‘Clip 2’.

Clip 2 has an increment value of ‘2’, so it will trigger the Clip ‘2’ spaces below it: ‘Clip 4’.

Clip 4 has an increment value of ‘-3’, so it will trigger the Clip 3 spaces above it: ‘Clip 1’.

The recent release of Gener8 0.6 promised extensive support for Novation Launchpad midi controllers, however it transpires that it is currently limited to the original version of the Novation Launchpad, i.e. not the newer, shinier ‘S’ or ‘Mini’ models.

On the drawing board is a functioning version of Gener8 for the ‘S’ & ‘Mini’ models, but I am still in the middle of tidying up a few bugs before this becomes a public beta. Of course, not having either of those models to hand makes this process a little awkward, but we push on nevertheless…

So, if you just can’t wait for me to find some free time to finish this up, then do contact me and I’ll pass you on a copy of the pre-release ; )

Works in nanoKontrol Scene 3, leaving you plenty of space to map you own controls.

Toggles between A/B layers (top push button 9)

Adjust layer transparency/alpha values (faders 1-5)

Adjust layer audio volume (knobs 1-5)\

Select active row (knob 9)

Trigger clip on active row (bottom buttons 1-5)

Trigger entire active rows (bottom button 9)

Dedicated crossfader slider (fader 9)

Show/Hide layers (top push buttons 1-5)

If you’re on the mailing list you will receive a download link, and if you’re not join up and I’ll send you the goods.

I’ll be posting more info about this update over the next few weeks so keep your eyes peeled. So much to teach you all. I am in the process of building more tutorials and updating the manual at last too.

One of the things I get asked fairly regularly about is how to sync Gener8 to other audio applications (Ableton, Traktor, Logic, Reason, etc.) via MIDI clock. So I thought I’d put this simple tutorial together to explain the basics.

I don’t intend to get into the nitty gritty of producing MIDI clock signals from each and every DAW out there (there’s plenty of info on the web for that, or in your favourite software’s manual, which if you haven’t already read it cover to cover I suggest you do as you’ll be surprised by some key features that are hidden away in there). And I don’t want to delve too far into getting MIDI signals into MODUL8 itself either, but I will say a little bit:

MODUL8 receives MIDI through the IAC (Inter Application Communication) Driver, so make sure you are sending your MIDI clock signals to IAC.

Also, be sure to check the IAC driver is enabled before starting up MODUL8. You can access your system MIDI settings with the ‘Audio MIDI Setup’ OSX app.

So then, we’ll begin by assuming you can get a MIDI clock signal into MODUL8. Okay then, let’s get this going…

STEP 1

Open up MODUL8, and get your GENER8 modules running. You’ll need a minimum of the Launchpad and Editor modules. (In this tutorial, we’ll be using the 0.53 version of GENER8)

Do not open any BPM module, and if you have one running, close it! – You won’t need it while running GENER8, and it will likely clash and may cause it to bug out. GENER8 has its own clock signal, which can also be accessed by other modules (info here for developers).

STEP 2

Start your MIDI clock running in your Audio app, and output it to the IAC driver.

STEP 3

Now is the time to check if we are receiving a MIDI clock in GENER8.

The Launchpad module has its Clock section to the top right. If all is good and well, it should be looking something like this:

Set the ‘MIDI CLOCK’ to the on position. Your clock section will now look like one of the following:

In this image, the Launchpad is listening for incoming MIDI clock signals, but cannot find any, and gives the ‘PAUSED’ message. If you see this message, double check you are sending your MIDI clock correctly, and if in doubt: Restart MODUL8.

In this image, the Launchpad has found a MIDI clock signal and tells us that its running at ‘BPM : 120.00’. If you see this, all is good. But we are still paused.

One more step…

STEP 4

A MIDI clock consists of 2 messages, the CLOCK message (which runs at 24 counts per beat), and the START/STOP message. So, although GENER8 is receiving a MIDI clock signal, it’s still waiting to be told when to Start.

Before you restart your DAW’s clock, now is a good time to check your Time Signature is correct.

The Time Signature of a piece of music is defined by the number of beats played in each bar. In most modern dance and western music this will likely be 4 beats per bar (Gener8’s default value), but if you happen to be performing to a Waltz you’ll want to adjust your ‘BAR BEATS’ value to ‘3’ (for 3/4 time).

So, when you’re quite happy, restart the Clock in your audio app. Once this is done, GENER8’s clock should now look like this:

You may notice small fluctuations in the incoming BPM, but do not despair – GENER8 will even this out to give you a steady beat.

So, your performance should now be in perfect Sync with your audio app. Also note that any Clips using the Editors ‘Auto-Loop’ function will magically adjust to any changes made to the clock timing from your audio app. Good times. Lovely!

And while I’m at it, the ‘LINK MASTER’ option is to control Modul8’s Master Speed with the BPM. That’s this guy:-

It’s basically a router for applying the Global LFO output (from my LFO Global module) to DMX channels. Much like the other LFO routers I have written for Modul8 keywords/controllers.

For those of you who don’t know the LFO module and a still using the BPM router, it has 2 Low Frequency Oscillators (one of which can feed back into the other), and 1 BPM controlled waveform. All oscillators can produce a number of different waveforms (sine / tri / ramp / cut / square / random), and output the result through the sharedDictionary to other modules such as this new ‘LFO to DMX’ one. There’s even a version of the Filter module which accepts Global LFO inputs, so you can keep your whole composition synced to the same oscillations!

Now, I’m not a big (or small) user of DMX gear, and I don’t actually have any to hand (so I’m not even sure why I spent the afternoon putting this thing together). Therefore, I haven’t actually tested it on any proper lighting rig – but that said, I’m pretty confident it’s gonna do the job, as all the maths tests out okay. Just seemed like it should exist, so I made it. It would be pretty cool to get some feedback though, so if you fancy having a play around, please do let me know how it goes!

Like this:

BUG REPORT: Also, I’d like to warn you that my fears over the issue with media changes not informing the editor module correctly about media length were understated.

It appears that changes to the media on a layer (either by yourself, or triggered by the Gener8 Launchpad) will result in the editor module picking up the length information of the previous media file and applying to the active one. The Auto Loop function will then attempt to timestretch based on false data.

I shall be rounding up my brain cells to work this one out as a priority.

Anyone with any ideas is more than welcome to come forward….

…although, that said, I think I may have just discovered a way around it – i have more testing and figuring out to be done before I can say anymore, though.

Like this:

Today, rather than working on Gener8, I have released another module for you all to have some fun with.

Announcing the LFO (global) mod!

Yes, Modul8 is riddled with LFO’s (low frequency oscillators), and I’ve never really been short of one when I needed it, but years of working/playing with analogue synthesis has made me become quite comfortable with the idea of a global LFO available from every point in the system, which is what I have done with this mod.

Specifics:
The mod contains 2 LFO’s and one BPM controlled waveform. LFO 2 has the option of being modulated by LFO 1, giving rise to quite complex waveforms, and all three can be applied to your selected controllers in varying amounts in the router modules.

The mod makes the values of the LFO’s available through the shared dictionary. Details of how to use this are in the info section of the module itself. But if you need any help I’ll be glad to help.

I shall be writing a more extensive manual on the mods on my website. In due course.

Like this:

With regards to MIDI mapping, does anybody use any of the dedicated Ableton midi controllers, such as the AKAI APC’s or the Novation Launchpad, as I can imagine they would integrate very nicely with the Gener8 Launchpad!

It would be great to be able to fine-tune it all so that the integration is tight.